Dr. William Cready

Professor of Accounting

Cready became interested in examining investors' trading responses to accounting information at The Ohio State University, where he was a doctoral student. During his doctoral program's weekly workshop several papers regarding trading volume were presented.

The papers piqued his interest because he wanted to learn more about how different types of investors trade in similar or differing fashions. Since then, he has concentrated his research in this area and has published numerous articles in leading journals.

Cready also studies how items are reported on income statements, particularly a classification known as "special items." He has been involved in several studies that explored the implications of "special items" classification for manager compensation, stock price valuation and whether "special items" serve as vehicles for hiding more ordinary expenses. He also studies the relationship between aggregate earnings and stock market returns.

Receiving the Ashbel Smith Professorship and his students' achievements are among his career highlights.

"The success of the students I've worked with has really been something I'm proud of," he said.

He is an editorial board member of The International Journal of Accounting, Contemporary Accounting Research, and The Accounting Review. He also has served as an editorial board member of Accounting Horizons.

He began his formal academic career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he won a Favorite Faculty Award for teaching. He also taught at Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University before joining The University of Texas at Dallas in 2004.

He earned his bachelor of science in accounting from University of Alabama. For his graduate work, he attended The Ohio State University, where he earned a master’s and PhD in accounting.

The professorship was established by the late Dr. Adolf J.H. Enthoven, a longtime accounting professor at the Naveen Jindal School of Management, to support the research and scholarly activities of the chairholder.

Cready has primarily researched the relationship between accounting information and investor trading decisions. Recently, he has examined how accounting information impacts stock prices. He co-authored a paper showing that aggregate market indices and firm level earnings move in opposite directions. That is, favorable firm level earnings news has negative rather than positive impacts, which carries implications for market-wide price movements.

“I feel privileged that I've been recognized with such an honor. It’s something I really never would have expected when I started out on this career path.”